


A New Path

by suffolkgirl



Series: Season 3 Lee one-shots [5]
Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Infidelity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:42:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25048606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suffolkgirl/pseuds/suffolkgirl
Summary: Wherever they go from here, it will be different from before. Lee’s not sure he wants to know where that new path leads.Written for a post-'Eye of Jupiter' fic challenge "Five Times Lee and Kara Bend the Rules".
Relationships: Lee "Apollo" Adama/Kara "Starbuck" Thrace
Series: Season 3 Lee one-shots [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1787194
Kudos: 20





	A New Path

**Author's Note:**

> Set between 'Unfinished Business' and 'Eye of Jupiter'.

**One**

They stumble out of the boxing ring and into the officers’ head, needing to wash off the blood and tend their bruises. All conversation stops as they enter, and by the time they each emerge from the shower cubicles everyone has drifted away, leaving them as isolated as they were in the ring.

Kara dabs at a cut on her chin and winces. Lee supposes he should feel guilty, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t regret any blow he landed on her. Only the release of those blows made him able to admit he missed her.

Kara moves on to a cut above her eye and starts swearing. “I can’t see what I’m frakking doing-”

“Let me,” says Lee, not really thinking. He picks up a wet flannel and turns towards her, tilts her face towards him so he can clean her wound.

As soon as his fingers touch her skin they both freeze. Their eyes lock and Lee is abruptly aware that every muscle in both their bodies is thrumming with tension.

Her hazel eyes are as bewildered as his own as they both realise that night in the field really did change everything. Too much was revealed that night, emotionally and physically, too many walls torn down, and they can’t go back.

They’re not just friends. They never were, but they used to be able to pretend that they were. Now they can’t. That night tore that pretence away for good. 

Wherever they go from here, it will be different from before. The old paths, the familiar trails, are closed to them now.

Lee’s not sure he wants to know where that new path leads. So he pulls his fingers away from her face and walks out of the head.

  
  


**Two**

Lee walks into the firing range and pauses when he sees Kara is the only other person there. He hasn’t ignored her since their boxing match, but he’s made sure never to be alone with either.

But she’s spotted him and he can’t walk out now. Not when she’s looking at him with that damned challenging light in her eyes.

He takes the spot next to her, pins up the target, puts on the earphones. Something makes him look over at her, and he sees the flick of her eyes as she hurriedly looks away and fires her gun. Bites her lip.

He picks up his own gun and fires, eyes fixed on the target, trying to forget that there’s anyone else in the room. Reloads and fires again, with barely a pause as he empties the gun. 

He’s so focused on ignoring her that it backfires. He doesn’t notice that she’s moved until her hand brushes his shoulder and he turns to find her standing right next to him, only a breath away.

He tries to step back, but he’s at the end of the range and he’s trapped against the wall.

“Kara-”

She doesn’t give him time to finish. She steps forward, with a look on her face he recognises all too well, and kisses him.

The feel of her lips on his is both alien and familiar all at once. He opens his mouth involuntarily and she deepens the kiss, slipping her tongue inside. Gods, she tastes just the same…something breaks inside him and he tangles his hands in her hair, pulling her closer, welcoming her in.

He knows he should stop this, should pull away. He has a wife now, and she has a husband. He shouldn’t be letting her do this, far less responding.

But he can’t help himself. He’s missed her so much, so much…

It takes him several minutes to get the strength to pull away. His hands stay on her shoulders though, and hers are still on his back.

She’s looking at him, and there’s something in her face that makes his heart catch, a vulnerability she so rarely lets show.

“I’m sorry, Lee.” Her voice is barely a whisper.

He knows she’s not talking about the kiss.

“It’s too late to be sorry, Kara.” Two sets of vows too late. 

“No, it’s not.” Her voice is strong, but there’s almost a plea in her eyes. “We can still have something. We can have this.”

She kisses him again, bright and fierce, willing him to respond.

He nearly does. He’s so tired of lying to himself, of convincing himself that he’s content with what he has, of pretending that he’s happy. He wants to feel alive again, to feel whole…

…but then he remembers Dee’s face that night after the boxing, the carefully hidden hurt in her eyes. He drags his mouth away.

“I can’t do this, Kara. I can’t.”

He pushes roughly past her and out of the firing range.

  
  


**Three**

Lee pulls off his helmet and finds his hands are shaking. Safe back on Galactica, the reaction is starting to kick in.

Gods, that was close. He doesn’t want to think just how close.

He takes a few deep breaths before climbing out of his viper, thinks he has himself under control. He takes two steps, sees her across the hangar deck, and that illusion is shattered.

He can’t remember moving, but suddenly he is in front of her, grabbing her arm.

“What the hell did you think you were doing?”

“My job,” she snaps angrily, but she doesn’t pull her arm away.

“You nearly got yourself killed!”

“Gods, Lee, lighten up! I’m fine.” She scowls at him. “Could we save the lecture for later? I’m tired.”

Lee tightens his grip on her arm. “No, we’ll damn well do it now. In private,” he adds, glaring around at the deck crew who are barely making a pretence of not listening in.

“Private suits me.” She follows him across the hangar deck, eyes scorching his face. “That way I can tell you what I really think of you-”

Lee pulls her into the first empty equipment locker he finds, slams and locks the hatch behind them. He turns to meet the full blaze of her fury.

“What the hell is wrong with you, Lee?”

He doesn’t bother to answer, just pulls her against him and crushes his mouth onto hers. Lets all the panic and rage of the last hour flood out of him. For a moment she’s rigid in his arms, and then something snaps and her mouth answers back with equal desperation.

He’s not sure how much time has passed when she finally pulls away.

“I thought you couldn’t do this, Lee?” Her voice is mocking, but her hands are trembling against him.

“Shut up, Kara.” He pulls her back against him, captures her mouth again. He doesn’t want to talk, not now. Doesn’t want to think, to doubt, to question. He wants to touch her, taste her, feel her surrounding him, to know that’s she here and warm and whole and alive…

He so nearly lost her today, so nearly. He seems to have spent half his life losing her, one way or another.

At least this way, he thinks, as he drives into her, he gets to hold her, to keep her. Just for a little while.

Afterwards he buries his head against her shoulder, trying to control his breathing. She drops a kiss against his hair with a tenderness that takes him by surprise.

“You shouldn’t worry so much, Lee. I know what I’m doing.”

He almost laughs. How can she be so blind? “Kara, if I hadn’t been there-”

“But you were.” She kisses him again, and brings up a hand to stroke the back of his neck. “Don’t you see? I knew you would be.”

That little declaration of faith scares him all over again, but for an entirely different reason.

  
  


**Four**

The sound of his office hatch opening rouses Lee from his pile of reports.

He knows who it is before he looks up. Only one person ever enters without knocking.

She locks the hatch behind her and turns. For a moment she stands there silently, staring at him. That’s one warning. The dark shadows under her eyes are the second.

“Kara?”

She ignores the question. “Frak it, Lee, don’t you ever stop working?” She walks towards him, pulling off her tanks. “I think you need to take a break.” She pushes back his chair, settles herself on his lap. “A long one.”

Her mouth fastens hungrily on his, with a jagged edge to it that’s the third warning.

“Kara.” He grasps both her shoulders, holding her back so he can see her face. 

“What?”

“Shouldn’t you be sleeping? You have CAP in four hours.” He knows her schedule now as intimately as his own.

“What if I have?” She scowls. “Gods, Lee, anyone would think you didn’t want to get laid.”

He ignores the double provocation of her words and the deliberate way she is moving against him. “Kara.” 

She moves again, and he nearly groans aloud, but he holds it in. Catches her chin with his hand, making her look at him. “Can’t you sleep?”

A long, defiant stare, and then something cracks in her eyes and she shakes her head.

“Nightmares?” He carefully keeps any sympathy out of his voice.

“Yes.” She closes her eyes.

“New Caprica?”

“Yes.” Her voice breaks on that final admission, and she pulls his head towards her and kisses him fiercely. He lets her, lets her expel all that fury and desperation and pain into him. He can bear it for her.

When she breaks the kiss she leans her forehead against his, her breath shuddering. He can feel something damp against his cheek.

“Kara. Maybe if you talked about it-”

“I don’t want to talk,” she says roughly. “I want to forget.” 

She kisses him again, and her hands start pulling at his tanks, undoing his belt. He doesn’t stop her. If that’s the only comfort she can accept from him, then he’ll give it. At least he can give her something.

When he’s buried inside her she whispers in his ear, her voice thick with tears.

“Make me forget, Lee. You’re the only one who can make me forget.”

He tries.

  
  


**Five**

When they started this, he thought that it might ease the need they have for each other. That the tension would be released, the flames die down. Instead, it’s the opposite. The periods they can bear to be separate from each other get shorter and shorter. They snatch every moment they can together, forgetful of where they are, of who might be watching. Oblivious to everything but each other.

They’re more careless about being seen alone together, about where they go. Lee knows he should care, but he can’t bring himself to. So he finds himself in a shower cubicle in the officers’ head just before the shift change, deep inside Kara, watching her struggle to stay silent as she breaks around him.

He knows it’s stupid and it’s reckless, and that someone could catch them at any moment, but that doesn’t seem to matter.

Part of him wants that, wants them to be caught. Wants Dee or Sam to find out, wants something to happen that will force his hand, or hers. Break this limbo they seem to be caught in.

But another part of him wants the opposite, wants to stave off the inevitable discovery as long as possible. Because he’s afraid that when it comes, when this all blows apart in their faces, he’s going to lose her again.

Because they might be on a new path, but he knows deep down that they’re heading to exactly the same old destination.

  
  



End file.
